How did we win the cold war?

Question

Did bombing win it? Did living in fear? I realize that some were scared and built bomb shelters and McCarthy was runnning around paranoid.

Evans,i'm fully aware of that.
open 4,i'd be interested in seeing the proof that everyone McCarthy accused was actually a commie.

Answer 1

There are a WHOLE bunch of answers to that question. A good one (out of NUMEROUS other answers is this...

They spent a lot of time and money in Afghanistan before us. That exhausted them financially. We were fighting them indirectly by training and funding and arming the opposition, the Taliban. They are doing the same thing to us in Iraq. They are indirectly providing arms and support (you just don’t know about it because you don’t read about these things.)

Are we at risk of suffering the same fate? Yes…


Here is your proof that McCarthy was correct: (it's going to require some reading and follow up reading, are you up to that?) - Read Venona Intercepts
By Peter Tyson

In 1995, the U.S. National Security Agency broke a half century of silence by releasing translations of Soviet cables decrypted back in the 1940s by the Venona Project. Venona was a top-secret U.S. effort to gather and decrypt messages sent in the 1940s by agents of what is now called the KGB and the GRU, the Soviet military intelligence agency. The cables revealed the identities of numerous Americans who were spies for the Soviet Union, including those chronicled in NOVA's "Secrets, Lies, and Atomic Spies."

The four Venona cables presented here provide striking evidence of the covert activities of several atomic-era spies, including Klaus Fuchs, Julius Rosenberg, and Theodore Alvin Hall. Through the cables and accompanying stories, peer through the keyhole into the secret lives of these and other agents, who gave away details of the atomic bomb and other highly sensitive technologies. Watch for code words such as "Enormous," which stood for the Manhattan Project, America's atomic-bomb program. To see the complete set of Venona documents released so far, go to the NSA's Venona Documents page at -

Answer 2

Wow what a bunch of ignorant people in here. Economics was a huge reason why the Soviet Union fell. They couldnt keep up with the US, which is what Reagan was banking on when he built up a campaign of massive military spending.

We had a policy of containment. We didnt want communism to spread. This was pretty much the reasons for our involvement in the Vietnam and Korean wars. Why we supported Iraq in the past. Why we still have issues with Cuba. We didnt want the gvt, that has been the biggest murderous gvt of all time, to spread, gain influence and be a greater threat to us and our allies around the world.

There was very good reason to fear the soviets in the past. They had nukes directly pointed at every major city and military base of ours. There were communist spies in the US in the 1900's. Just as we had spies over in the USSR. There were plenty of communist sympathizers. I am very very glad I did not grow up with a constant threat of nuclear annihalation by a very real enemy with just as technologically advanced weaponry as us. Terrorists are pretty scary too, but they cant launch a thousand nukes at us at any second.

You people that dont want to give the US any credit for the fall of the soviets union are really really really ignorant or just really dont like the US. We drove them into an economics military race they could not sustain given their type of economy. Had we not been constantly on their backs and forcing them basically into bankruptcy they very might right now still be a threat. Yes they had internal issues and yes they had an impractical economic model, but we helped push them past the breaking point.

Answer 3

Now there's an excellent question.

There are two predominant theories.

1. We scared Russia to death by out producing them militarily. We had more bombs, and seemed rich enough to build more. We started talking scary 'what if' talk that amounted to a constant barrage of brinksmanship. This was the Reagan Presidency. Some would say this caused their will to buckle. They couldn't afford to keep up...

2. Another theory gives credit to the Russian people for finally being fed up with the bombs and the war in Adghanistan, and the meltdown at Chernobyl that they congealed into a real resistance. All this seems quite likely to me. As a people they had put up with the repression for quite long enough thanks. No iron regime in history can finally withstand the pent up disgust of a population.

Myself, I think there were aspects of both, but I see the second explanation as a more well rounded, historically resonant possibility.

Answer 4

Ronald Reagan made three basic promises to the American people.

I will stop inflation.
I will bring unemployment to a single digit.
I will arm this country.

His success in the arms race and the fact that the Russians knew that Space based defense could be a reality for the US and the accelerating American economy broke the Soviet bank.

End of cold war.

Answer 5

Ummm...I hope you're not suggesting we were actually IN a war called the "Cold War". A bomb from either side would've ended the "cold war", too....it would've turned into WWIII.

Edit: Well forgive me if I incorrectly believed you were trying to draw a comparison between the Cold War and the war in Iraq (because that would just be silly). After reading a couple of questions on Y!Answers, you almost have to wonder where some of these people have been hiding all of their lives. We won the cold war by winning the arms race....the ruskies ran out of money first.

In reply to whatlolawants below: You stated in your answer to another question..."They [Americans] cannot even keep Austria and Australia apart !!" Think they can tell the difference between the Cold War and a real WAR?

Answer 6

Hmm, Evans-Michael_Ya, I think most of your American countrymen think there was a cold war which was a WAR.

But yes: Gorbatchov decided to stop the game - and this actually made him the winner ! or was there really an overwhelming majority of republicans in the Russian men's rooms ?
One thing is for sure : the pope had zero to do with it. Ha!

Answer 7

We didn't.....the people of Russia won the cold war when their economy crashed and they could no longer afford to go into debt. Of course, alot of people want to give RR credit for ending the cold war because he wasn't affraid to put the American people into debt by coming up with a good bluff called "Star Wars" that threatned the ability of striking Russia with satellites........of course this never worked and there were billions of taxpayer dollars wasted on the program but that is insignificant. After the cold war was "won"..then RR decided that technology could take the place of man and signed the laws that started closing military bases because we didn't need them anymore.

Answer 8

The number one reason the cold war was one was the efforts of Pope John Paul 11 to disrupt the communist party and rally the peoples of Eastern Europe to defiy their leaders. Once the Berlin wall came down it was only a matter of time before the Soviet Union collapsed.

Answer 9

By nearly bankrupting the United States, through an arms race with the USSR primarily, we caused the USSR to spend money they didn't have either which caused their economy to be stretched too thin precipitating their demise.

Of course we still have an $8,900,000,000,000 (that's trillion) dollar debt and the Republicans and Democrats keep spending money we don't have.

Answer 10

The chilly conflict ought to not be won interior the final theory of prevailing or dropping, it ought to purely be misplaced. the tip of the chilly conflict became into accomplished got here as a consequence of economics. The Soviet Union became into unable to generate sufficient products interior its empire to maintain their financial equipment by way of fact offering the undemanding needs of life to their satellites became into over. for this reason, areas of the empire more desirable extra capitalist economies and a miles less tyrannical government concerning their voters. commerce grew to alter into their savior. Poland became into the 1st to take this highway, and the Soviets have been unable to stop them militarily by way of fact the hands race had negated any Soviet potential of identifying to purchase and advertising, by way of fact they might pay the charges mandatory to have identifying to purchase and advertising companions.